About this manual

This manual explains in non-technical language how to use a working MythTV installation to record and view programs and how to tune, tweak and configure it. The process of building and updating it is covered in other places on the wiki.

Like the program itself, this manual is being produced by the community — the people who create and use the system — so its tone and depth of detail may vary in spots. I hope to even out those hills and valleys a bit in the editing process without offending the people. I've also tried, before releasing this section for general consumption, and with the help of JDonavan, to get some framework in place to serve as an example for later writers. Structural coherence is worthwhile; I hope folks will feel that my approach is comprehensible rather than compost. :-)

Reading suggestions

--> Read this paragraph to know when you can skip chapters or paragraphs

Best of course is to read the manual from A to Z. For people in a hurry there is this quickstartguide explaining how to use this manual to setup your MythTV system reading as few paragraphs as possible. This is done by helping you to find the right paragraphs for your specific requirements/setup.

Right below some chapters and paragraphs you'll find reading notes giving you suggestions as to whether or not you need to read that chapter or paragraph. You can recognize this by the arrow followed by a suggestion showed in cursive style (e.g. see the one below the current paragraph name).

--> This is a reading suggestion

Such a reading suggestion always has the same scope as the chapter or paragraph itself.

Notes about editing this manual

The User Manual should, by policy, always reflect the system's current production release. MythTV 0.24 was released on 10 November 2010. (MythTV 0.23 was released on 3 May 2010.) When possible, differences regarding the immediately previous release should be noted in parentheses, or with numbered section headers if the changes are large enough. We want to stay as current as possible, but we don't want to leave large numbers of users behind. As we expand this manual, some of the more technical bits in that explanation will likely turn into hotlinks.